Du bist verloren, Fremder

This is not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination. But it IS fun, lots of fun. The characters are real people with all the frailties and peculiarities that make them interesting. Even though I half expected the outcome it didn't really matter because the way there was so much fun to watch. Nobody was perfect, all good or all bad, just real. Of the two brothers one began as shady and questionable character and the other as an upright citizen but as the film progressed they switched places. The transition was believable and based on facts clearly brought out in the script. Diana Dors was the fulcrum about whom the entire exercise revolved and she did an excellent job playing a woman who is confident of her appeal, willing to use it, but is anything but one-dimensional.

So what's not to like? I can't help but think that in the hands of a better director this could have been much, much better. Those same elements that made it fun could have made it great had they been handled more expertly. Dors' sensuality was shamelessly exploited and don't get me wrong, I just as shamelessly enjoyed every bit of it. But there were some superfluous shots that did nothing to advance the plot and appear to have been inserted just to give us another look at this gorgeous woman. And then there was the theme song, played to distraction. I for one, don't get the connection. What do the words "Tread Softly Stranger" have to do with the relationship between two brothers and a woman?

But in the long run, even though I can't rate it any higher, I heartily enjoyed this film and will gladly do so again. For those who haven't yet seen it do so immediately.

This is a film noir crime drama about a slutty femme fatale who manipulates her partner and his brother into committing a robbery at her partner's workplace.

The story is good, as is the acting. However, the lack of Yorkshire accents in characters who are from working-class / underclass backgrounds is a major flaw. It's unbelievable that Diana Dors' very glamorous character would choose to live in poverty with a man whom she's not fond of.

There's no indication of how the film's title relates to the events and characters within it.

TREAD SOFTLY STRANGER is a tense and immersive British film noir featuring a headlining performance from Diana Dors at her most sultry and alluring. The story is a basic love triangle compounded by money worries, which lead to robbery and murder, all set within a grim and run-down northern industrial town. The opening scenes, which show off a fabulous and elaborate rooftop location complimented by Dors and her morning exercise routines, are great and racy stuff indeed.

I always feel that when a British B-movie thriller gets everything right then it's head and shoulders above rival American fare and that's the case here. This tale was originally adapted from a play but the cinematic version gets everything right and in particular the cast is a fine one.

Dors obviously holds the attention with her bombshell performance, but the real star of the thing is the underrated Terence Morgan (CURSE OF THE MUMMY'S TOMB) who propped up many a B-movie with his villainous turns. He has more depth to his character than usual and does very well with it. George Baker - TV's Inspector Wexford - plays the straight role and is very nearly as good, and a young Patrick Allen rounds off the cast.

George Baker and Terrence Morgan play the Mansell Brothers about as different as brothers can get. Baker has gone to London where his gambling has put him in debt with some bad people. He decides to go home to his north of England factory town and hole up there for a bit.

Where he's reunited with his rather dull brother Morgan who is a bookkeeper in a factory. His life is enlivened by the presence of Diana Dors who is one high maintenance indulgence for him. But pretty soon she also has Baker's wheels spinning too.

Because she's so high maintenance Morgan is short in his accounts at the factory and an audit is coming. Baker's and Dors's solution is rob the place to cover the theft and incidentally pay off the nasty people Baker owes.

For all his worldliness Baker himself is no professional criminal so when the Mansell Brothers go out to steal everything goes wrong.

Diana Dors was the United Kingdom's answer to Marilyn Monroe. But Monroe even in her most voluptuous role in Niagara had nothing on Diana Dors in Tread Softly Stranger. One look at her you see why Baker and Morgan were goners.

Tread Softly Stranger is worth seeing for one sexy bundle from Britain named Diana Dors.

I confess that I know nothing about Director Gordon Parry. As far as I can tell, the rather good FRONT PAGE STORY, starring Jack Hawkins, is the only other film he has directed that I have watched.

Both films have strong, structured stories, but TREAD SOFTLY, STRANGER has the advantage of Diana Dors in the greatest form ever, even managing to deliver a credible performance. That said, plaudits must go to George Baker and Terence Morgan for playing two brothers understandably smitten with Dors - a temptress who wants money and gets them to steal for her, even if one (Baker) only does it to help his brother out of a tough situation and can clearly see Dors for the gold digger she is. Morgan is more impressionable and becomes a puppet in her horny hands, despite knowing that she does not love him but loves his brother instead.

Baker leaves London because of a bad debt and seeks refuge in his backwater birthplace, Rawborough, a small railway stop town with a factory that keeps spewing fumes, like a smouldering hell consuming its residents, some of whom question Baker's return from "lovely London" to dingy Rawborough. The brighter of the two brothers, Baker sensibly destroys the money that his brother stole from the factory where he works... too little too late. From the moment the brothers broke the law, and in particular when an old factory security guard is accidentally shot dead, the gods of Greek tragedy (and the British production code which wanted no bad examples to encourage the already rising crime rate) predetermine punishment for them.

Baker has the smarts to know that police need proof in order to charge them, but panicking Morgan cannot resist blind justice.

Dors' final declaration that she will wait for Baker floats off with the breeze swirling around the rooftops of the bedroom she rents.

Solid chiaroscuro cinematography from the excellent Douglas Slocombe, arresting script from Minter and O'Dell.

Definitely worth watching. 8/10.